7:00am: As it stands, Italy, Costa Rica and Uruguay are all on three points with one win a piece.

Costa Rica will play their second match tomorrow against Italy (2am).

For England, their only hope of getting through to the next round will be if Italy have big wins in their next two games, they themselves beat Costa Rica on Wednesday morning at 2am, and they have a superior goal difference.

Alvaro Pereira cops a legitimate knee to the head from Sturridge - gee that would have caned.

England starting to get a bit nervous I'd say, where is this goal going to come from. They've got about half an hour to do something with this possession they've got. I'd be surprised if Uruguay had more of it this half.

6:01am: A good little visual to show just how ineffective Rooney has been in front of goal in the World Cup finals. The cloest one to goal is the header he missed today. Maybe he's destined to not score a goal. It's OK Wayne, Cahill's only scored five.

England deep in enemy territory yet again. Strurridge gives a top ball to Welbeck who is brought down. England have a free kick about seven metres from the left corner post.

SO CLOSE! Gerrard takes it and Rooney hits the cross bar with a header - wow that was close!

He jumped very high but just couldn't get any downward trajectory to get the ball in the back of the net. That's as close as he'll come to breaking that World Cup drought everyone's been talking about!

Gerrard gives a beautiful long ball to Johnson on the right wing and eventually England get a free kick for a bad tackle on Sterling from Rodriguez.

Gerrard is bumped off the ball by his Liverpool team mate Suarez in a contest for the ball after the free kick. There's a handball near the box from Diego Godin from Uruguay and he's been given a YELLOW CARD!

Wayne Rooney nearly opens up his World Cup goal scoring account - with his free kick just sailing over the cross bar.

4:55am: England are coming off the back of a 2-1 loss to Italy, but can't be knocked for their effort. Uruguay on the other hand were caught off guard in a 3-1 loss to Costa Rica, which means they face a serious uphill battle to qualify.

For the South Americans, arguably their best player Luis Suarez returns after having keyhole surgery five weeks ago for a small meniscus tear. It'll be very interesting to see what impact the Liverpool striker has.

England go into the match as favourites at about $2, while the draw and a Uruguay win are paying around the $3.75 mark. I'll back England to get an early goal and then have the legs to defend it in the second half.

Glad you could join me at this very early hour for Fairfax's live blog of England v Uruguay.

The context of today's game is huge, pretty much whoever loses can kiss goodbye their World Cup campaign. They both lost their last games and will no doubt be tuning in to Italy v Costa Rica tomorrow morning at 2am.

Can England break their 48 year World Cup drought? Or will Uruguay stop them in their tracks before the round of 16 gets underway?